The Old Man and the Minivan

That's it. It's over. This must be what life comes to when you get old and have children. I am now the semi-proud owner of a 2004 Honda Odyssey. Dark, sparkly blue. Butter soft gray leather interior. Side doors that smoothly slide open by the push of a little remote button. Heated seats that give my bottom a frighteningly tingly feeling. A flip-down DVD player for the 4 year-old....or me. 37,000 measly miles. Room enough for a circus of clowns. A minivan. Gone is cruising up and down St. Louis streets in my 1997 Nissan Maxima, blasting Rage Against the Machine for all my people to hear and feel with me on the first days of Spring. Dull gold-brick gold. Gray cloth interior that would harbor the smell of the last thing I ate or did for days. A mismatched, discolored bumper with a dent in the side the size of a grapefruit. A moon roof or sun roof--I never knew the difference--that I would look up through to find stars, or birds, or airplanes, or clouds shaped like fruit, usually when driving. An inch of dust on the dash and Cheerios and Kleenex strewn about that said, "This is me." Gone is the excuse to others that I could never drive in a car pool because it was too smooshed in the back with the kid's car seat. Gone is getting to know the baby's names and favorite jellies of my mechanics. My experience and knowledge of packing the trunk on trips like a puzzled tuna can...all for naught. No more "www.funksauce.com" sticker and funksauce logo trucker hat in the back window to let people know that they just drove by that funksauce dude in the cool gold Maxima again. It was me and my Maxima, amigos, buddies, pals, and it has....had....character. Now it will be washed, and vacuumed, and dusted, and air-purified, just to be sold off after all of its time as my comforter, my confidant, my companion. My car. Stripped of its character for some pimply-faced crackly voiced just-turned 16 year-old kid to muck it all up. I should know, because I ruined a classic '69 Volkswagen Beetle at that age, and I'll never forgive myself. Is that fair for me and my car to do that to some ignorant and lazy mama's boy? But what's done is done. I can't save my old friend now. Memories are all I will have left. The time we had electrical problems late at night on the highway and had to pull over. The creak of the steering wheel or rubbing of the brakes as we would back out of the garage every morning. The countless trips where we barely safely arrived to our destination. The glove box within an easy reach where we hid all of our secrets. We supported each other. I could step out of my Maxima in an 80's terry cloth shirt and say, "Thanks for the vote of confidence buddy", and I'd go on knowing my partner would be there waiting when I got back, because, well, frankly no one would steal her. But I will somehow go on with this new, strange beast. It will probably look the other way when I rappel down out of it in a men's vintage shirt with a butterfly collar. And it will say that the funksauce stickers and hats and license plates don't fit, because a minivan's not like them, too good for them, for us. Too classy. I'll tell it it's spoiled and has been pampered too much and is too big for it's britches. I'll sulk. And as I'm lumbering down the road, running over curbs and small dogs, I'll think of her. My golden beauty, probably crying tears of oil. And I may cry too, down my polyester, and into the seats of this new minivan, where I now must lay all of my trust out on the line. But in my heart my Maxima will never be replaced. Unless, of course, I got a 1970's Corvette or something similar.